Free Trade Wind by M. M. Kaye Page A

of her bunk, and groping for her shoes in the grey gloom, put them on and left the cabin. It was not an easy matter to remain upright, and she was bruised and giddy by the time she reached the door at the top of the saloon companionway. The bolts were stiff, and when she had drawn them it was a hard struggle to force the door open, for the wind was leaning against it at gale force. But with the aid of a momentary lull she managed it at last, and was out in the open—breathless and instantly soaked and realizing too late the incredible folly of her behaviour.
    She must, she decided, have been sick or mad or both to venture up on deck in a storm of such magnitude, and the sooner she returned to the safety of her cabin the better. But that was easier thought of than done, for the door had slammed shut behind her and once again the wind was holding it closed. Hero discovered to her horror that she could neither get a satisfactory grip on the wet handle nor pull on it, for the gale forced her hard against the dripping panels and drove the breath from her body. Pressed against the closed door and struggling to breathe, she was aware for the first time of panic, for although the morning was far advanced and she knew it must be close on noon, the day still seemed almost as dark as the night had been; and seen from the open deck the storm appeared infinitely worse and far more terrifying than anything her imagination had pictured for her.
    Enormous iron-grey hills of water, foam-streaked and furious, reared up against the black storm-clouds and the jagged lightning, and tossed the helpless ship to and fro; playing with it as though it were a wounded mouse in the grip of a gigantic cat. The helmsman, lashed to the wheel, fought grimly to keep her head to the wind; but the gale was a living thing, lifting the labouring ship, dropping it, flinging it aside and snatching it up again.
    Hero released one shaking hand and attempted to clear her eyes of the rain and spray that slashed across the deck, and as she did so a boiling cauldron of foam sprang over the bow, and catching her about the knees, broke her loosened hold on the door handle and swept her away to bring her up with bruising abruptness against the side of the charthouse. Her skirts cling to her in drenched folds while her abundant hair, whipped from its chignon, streamed out on the wind like long ribbons of wet brown seaweed. She was aware of a heavy body blundering against her; of wet oilskins and a furious, incredulous face. A hand gripped her arm and fragmentary words reached her above the howling of the gale:
    “What in thunder…doing up here? This ain’t passenger’s weather!…Get out of it! Get below! Get…’ The wind tore the words away and a crash of thunder drowned them.
    Once again the greyness was ripped by a livid blaze of lightning, and she heard the man shriek ‘ Christ! ‘ And saw in the same instant what he had seen—
    There was another ship out there, bearing down on them. A schooner in irons, broached to and unable to get her bows back in the teeth of the wind; her foremast gone and her rat-lines trailing. A thing as deadly as a charging tiger or a hidden reef.
    The hand that gripped Hero’s arm released its hold and its owner raced towards the wheel, and shouldering the spray-blinded helmsman to one side, wrenched the spokes hard over. But Hero could not look away. She could only watch the schooner plunge towards them, knowing that this was death. In a moment—in less than a moment—it would strike, and there would be a rending crash of timber and the crack of falling masts, and then the sea would boil over the wreckage and suck it under, and no one would ever know what had happened. She would not have to make up her mind about Clay after all. Or about anything else. There was no time—no time—
    The Norah Crayne , answering to her helm, fell off to starboard into the trough of a cross sea, and a long grey cliff of water lifted out of the storm